NOTE ON A ROMAN ROAD. 149 



riding fell lame. Sending back for another horse, a couple of 

 miles was a serious delay when the days were short ; on arriving 

 at Crauford Bridge we found the Stour Valley flooded, and a 

 stretch of road for about a quarter of a mile covered with water, 

 which came up higher than the horses' girths. Through this we 

 waded safely, although occasionally my horse shewed its dislike 

 to this unusual medium of progress, and at one time I did not 

 know how it would end. On arriving at Hemsworth I soon fell in 

 with a fresh piece of the road, still in the direction of Badury, 

 and traced it onwards through several cultivated fields. I was foiled 

 at a small plantation, but recovered the road again in a piece of 

 gorse on the crown of the hill of the adjoining down. Here I 

 discovered for the first time that the direction of the road was 

 not straight to the Camp, but slightly on the east side of it. 

 A gateway by which the field adjoining the down is entered 

 stands on the centre of the road, which it crosses diagonally and 

 joins the Via Iceniana near the north side of the Camp. 



It is remarkable the unrecovered portions of the road are 

 only where the surface has been undisturbed, no traces of it 

 remain the result, probably, of the disintegrating effects of frost 

 and rain which have been going on for the last 2,000 years ; the 

 portions, however, protected by underwood and furze have resisted 

 these atmospheric ravages, which enabled us to trace the road 

 through the copse near Hogstock. 



During my absence from England I received much valuable 

 assistance from Dr. T. Wake Smart, the only survivor of that 

 energetic band, who nearly half-a-century ago, fired by the 

 ardour of the late Mr. Miles, one of the earliest explorers of 

 barrows, have done so much to elucidate the unwritten history 

 of our county, the result of whose labours are embodied in the 

 pages of " Ancient Dorset," the latest and most important literary 

 work of Mr. C. Warne, and to which Dr. T. Wake Smart's introduc- 

 tion to the primeval ethnology of Dorset is a valuable appendix. 

 The New Ordnance Map shows the road from Ashmore to 

 Launceston only, but not the section on to Badbury. The 



